The Sun Hasn't Died
by squiddly.bunny
Summary: Like most of humanity after the Battle of New York, Captain America is having an existential crisis. A chance meeting with a female priest leads him to look for some answers on how to make sense of his new reality. What Cap gets instead, however, is a 1,000 year old secret society, a new deadly threat, and an unexpected romance. Rated T for now; Steve R./OC.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note:** _Whew! It's been a damn long time since I've worked on my fanfiction. So long, in fact, that I've managed to lock myself out of my old account (which you can find under the penname **BunBun Fett**). And yes, that's me. I promise. (And, I can also prove it, if called to do so.)_

_I used to be big into the Star Wars fanfiction (as you can see from my old profile/work), but a lot has happened since those days. I've been inspired by The Avengers for some time now and I finally decided to give into the plot bunny muses and work on a Captain America fanfic. I hope you all enjoy. :)_

* * *

**Eli POV**

I had a mixed opinion of the Avengers. On one hand, they saved New York – and the world – from a fate that even _I_ couldn't comprehend. On the other hand, they left behind one hell of a mess. A mess that, in turn, fell to others to clean up.

Like myself.

Not all super-heroes wear flashy uniforms, or capes, or masks. Not all super-heroes possess super-human talents. Not all super-heroes come from other worlds, or fight to save humanity from threats that exist from beyond the edges of our reality.

I guess you could say I wore a "uniform" of sorts. It possessed cape-like qualities. I certainly wore a mask. I did possess super-human talents, though they were an organic part of my own evolution; I had not come into possession of them from extraordinary means outside of myself. And I did save humanity – or at least, the humanity within my sphere of influence. But, I saved humanity from themselves, not from threats of an extra-terrestrial or uber-human origin.

I did not help the Avengers in the Battle of New York, but I _was_ at ground zero. I had started that fateful day in Manhattan at a conference and had been drawn into the chaos and destruction by the sheer virtue of happenstance and the presence of my clerical collar. While being evacuated from the office building high-rise where I and a hundred other men and women had been discussing an inter-faith approach to address homelessness, hunger and crime in our congregations, I was recognized by a fire fighter whose youngest child I had baptized. He ran through the smoke and screams to grab my arm and beg me to accompany him through the wreckage, to say the Last Rites as needed and to comfort the wounded.

I quickly got separated from my fire fighter friend, but the black clothes and white collar of a priest will wield a certain – and unexpected – respect in times of bloodshed and destruction. I had never been on a battlefield before, but I simply stepped forward into the footsteps of men and women of the cloth who had gone before me. I helped carry wounded out of harm's way, I helped shepherd the living and the frightened to safety, I knelt at the sides of the dying and prayed with them or spoke words of comfort to them as they faced the unknown "Shadowlands", I closed the eyes of the dead and helped move them to the torn-up sidewalks.

I was stopped frequently, but only ever briefly – for only as long as it took for wide-eyed EMS and NYPD to recognize the Celtic cross against my chest and what it meant. I was granted access almost to the very epicenter of the battle, where the Avengers themselves stood staunch against the alien invaders.

It was there, just a mere two blocks away from the very worst of the battle, that I first met Captain America. I was kneeling next to a fallen police officer, whose last words were merely a plea for someone to look after the fates of the two children she would leave behind. I was just pressing my fingertips to her eyelids, when I felt a malevolent presence behind me. I could see the shadow cast against the crushed vehicles to my left – it was a Chitauri foot soldier. I immediately looked up and glanced around the street in front of me, taking just a few precious moments to make sure that I was alone on the block.

I could hear the Avengers fighting just blocks away from me, but I was on the edges of a police barricade and I didn't want anyone to see what I was preparing to do. All backs were turned and all attentions otherwise occupied, so I turned toward the Chitauri swiftly, still kneeling, my hand outstretched toward it. I gathered the power that constantly churned within my blood –

And a brilliant flash of red and silver swept in front of me; a shadow blocked the sun from my view, and a muscled expanse of blue-wrapped flesh now stood between me and the Chitauri. An arm, bearing a huge, round shield swept downward toward the foot soldier and in sheer seconds – as long as it would have taken me to handle the threat myself – the alien's carcass fell to the ground with a sickening thud.

I realized in that moment just how _huge_ the First Avenger really was – he was a towering specimen of a man, impossibly broad of shoulder and wide of chest. My eyebrows rose and my eyes widened as he turned toward me. I hadn't run across a man so imposing since Victor – although, granted, I had been much younger and even shorter when I had had the misfortune of falling beneath _that _particular shadow. Size, of course, was always relative to one's own age.

But, now I was a full-grown woman and the Captain was truly imposing. Intimidating, almost, with his blue eyes ablaze with what I could easily recognize as righteous indignation. His chest was heaving with exertion and his whole body was taunt. Doubtless, the adrenaline of battle was creating an even greater aura of strength and physical magnitude than he already possessed. I couldn't help but take a moment and marvel, ever so swiftly in the confines of my own mind, at what man had made.

"Are you okay, F-" his address stopped short, as his eyes fell on the long strawberry-blond braid that graced the length of my black-cloaked back.

His eyes flickered from my braid, to the little square of white that stood out proudly against my throat. Then, his eyes flickered back to my hair. And then, ever so subtly, toward the front of my shirt, and then, ever so guiltily, toward my face.

"Uh-"

"_Mother_," I said for him, finally sweeping to my feet and standing to face him like the grown and capable woman that I was. "Mother Eli."

"Mother…?" his tongue tripped over the word and his eyes searched my face in complete confusion; I smiled a little sadly at him.

"Things have changed a bit," I said softly; I couldn't quite bear the look of sudden loss that spasmed across his masked face, so I glanced down toward my soot-covered hands and began wiping them self-consciously against my equally soot-covered thighs.

"Clearly," his voice cracked a bit and he cleared his throat; I graciously pretended that it was the dust in the air that caused the waver in his voice.

I looked back up at him – even standing, he made me feel small and breakable – and offered him a slight smile.

"Thank you, Captain," I made the sign of the cross between us and turned to go.

There was a battle raging; there was no time for words. But, I paused a moment before I completely turned away and glanced at the tall, strong hero who stood before me, so clearly a man out of time.

"Come down to Brooklyn some time, if it ever gets to be too much. St. Francis' doors are always open."

"Thanks…" he swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing noticeably as his blue eyes looked me up and down quizzically one last time.

He met my eyes and smiled a small smile of his own. His teeth stood out, white, against the smudged grime that covered his chin and cheeks. Even with the mask on, he looked boyish, if only for a second.

"Mother," he nodded toward me, all business yet again.

Someone called his name – a woman's voice, clear and clarion against the rage of the battle. The Captain gave me a quick salute – a gesture that surprised me – and turned to run toward the voice calling him, about a block southeast of us. I was left alone with two broken bodies – one human, one alien – and I whispered a prayer into the hot, ash-filled wind that was being tunneled down the street between the high-rises.

My eyes lingered on the fallen Chitauri and I had to wonder, not for the first time, if there was a God left to hear us.

* * *

I helped clean up the Avengers' mess that day, and in the following days, and in the following nights. It was hard, at times, not to begrudge them, especially on the days when my tiny church's soup kitchen was filled with the suddenly homeless and dispossessed. Or, when I had to start helping other parish priests with their pastoral care – counseling was part and parcel of being a leader in any faith, but there was a significant difference between the expectations laid upon a "pulpit minister" and the expectations laid upon a trained chaplain. Unlike many in New York's faith communities, I had once been primarily a chaplain, trained in counseling and in secular psychology. I knew about grief and trauma. I held a doctoral degree in Thanatology – the study of death and dying.

There was a lot of death, dying, wounded, traumatized, and marginalized in the days following the Battle of New York. There was a lot of grief, a lot of questions, a lot of spiritual and existential crises. Several leaders of the faith community quit in the weeks following the battle; it was hard to answer questions about God – _any_ god – in the aftermath of aliens and _two_ god-like men straight out of Norse mythology. It was hard to believe anything and even harder to know what to believe _in_. Even Science had seemingly failed us.

At night, I worked as well, a cloaked crusader. During the day, I wore black and somber colors. At night, I wore white – the easier to be seen. White fedora, white coat, white trousers, white boots, all accented in red and green. I wore a red stole with two white crosses stitched on the bottom edges; to the discerning, those crosses were a warning of an ancient heritage. By day, I was innocuous, below the radar, untraceable, unremarkable. By night, I was a defender, an exorcist, a healer, a wizard, a mutant, a monster.

I did not so much fight the escalation of crime that followed the Battle of New York, as I protected the innocent from the deeds of evil men. I had taken an oath, upon the eve of my ordination, not to use my powers for harm. I could only defend and heal. This often made my work rather dangerous, as I had to rely on my physical strength to defeat the "bad guys". My only weapons were a weathered book and a pair of brass knuckles. As a lone woman – and a short one at that – I could only reasonably expect to take two or three assailants successfully at a time. If accosted by more than that, I had to resort to subterfuge and quick thinking to remove myself and anyone else from a bad situation.

I was usually successful, even when the odds were _not_ in my favor. I had gathered quit the reputation for myself – a suitable "street cred", if you will. It only took a few weeks after my arrival to Brooklyn, for the word to get around. "Don't mess with Priest," was the word on the street. "Don't get in a fight with him."

To the world, I was a "him". With my hair tucked up under my fedora and my chest bound down, my disguise was suitably gender-neutral enough that most folks just assumed that I was male. And my moniker helped – as Captain America proved, the sight of a clerical collar, without observation of any contrary physical factors, often lead the casual observer to assume "male". So, at night, male I was – or, in my own mind, at least gender-neural.

And regardless of my gender, the thugs learned quickly. The "White Priest" wasn't one to challenge.

But, every so often, I got in over my head. After moving to New York from Denver, I didn't encounter a lot of resistance after the first six or so months of my vigilante work. But after the Battle of New York, people got desperate and the gangs began to thrive. I had more trouble on my hands than ever before – fear will turn even the most law-abiding citizen to the most irrational choices. People began to fear going out alone after dark together, too. The number of my victims increased – but so did my number of aggressors.

I also started to notice something going wrong on my Brooklyn streets – something very, very wrong. More than desperation began to creep along my alleyways and wrecked-out buildings; something more than fear began to shine within the eyes of the gangsters, drug dealers, addicts, and crooks. I couldn't put my finger on it, but my intuition told me that some unknown evil was beginning to prowl the streets of New York City.

I came face to face with this new evil the night that Priest first met Captain America. I was prowling along Colonial Court, near the Bay, when I heard the screams of a man in distress. Without a second thought, I ran straight for the sound, toward a dark and narrow alleyway that I knew dead-ended in a small, square courtyard sandwiched between the backsides of four old warehouses. I should have known better, than to approach a dead-end like that on foot, instead of climbing one of the warehouses and assessing the situation briefly from the rooftop. But, there had been too man screams of distress lately and my compassion got the better half of my reason.

There was a ring of thugs surrounding the screaming man, blocking him from my view. I had seen this scenario before and once again, assumption over-rode my common sense. It didn't even register that not a single man held a weapon in his hand; not one baseball bat or set of chains rested against any of the shoulders in front of me. There was no sound of beating or torture – just endless, haunting, tormented screaming.

I laid into the wall of five or six bodies, punching and kicking as I went. A group this size was a little big for me to be taking on my own, but I had the element of surprise. Two of them even ran off in fear before I could get to them; I assumed, foolishly of course, that they ran away from me.

When four bodies writhed on the ground at my feet, I finally turned my attention toward the victim. It was in that awful, breath-stealing moment when demonic red eyes pierced into mine, that I realized I had grossly underestimated the situation.

The man in front of me was still more or less human, but his eyes glowed a hellish red. He had no pupils, no irises anymore – just a solid blank slate of red across the width of his eyes. His lips were curled back in a snarl and his teeth were normal, but some sort of black substance oozed evilly from between his gums. It leaked from his nose as well, and his ears, dribbling down to stain the starched white front of what had once been a nice button-up shirt. I had never seen anything like him before and I recoiled in a mixture of outrage and disgust.

As I stepped back, I felt a pair of strong arms clasp my biceps – one of the men I thought I had successfully felled had gotten back on his feet. I immediately moved to stomp my heel into the top of his left shoe, but as I shifted my focus to his immediate threat, the not-human in front of me moved forward with deadly intent. As if in slow motion, I saw his arm reach back behind him and I belatedly realized that his hands were skeletal caricatures of human flesh, tipped in razor-sharp claws. Those claws swiftly hurled through the air between us toward my throat, as I heard the assailant behind me merely grunt in pain as I stomped on his foot and moved not even a muscle.

Blue and white flashed in front of me for the second time in as many months and the hand that had been reaching toward me with deadly intent suddenly dropped to the ground, severed from the arm to which it had been attached. The creature in front of me howled in indignation and shied away from the solid thunk of boots as they hit the ground to our right. A spinning shield – the weapon that had separated hand from arm – whipped around the small courtyard and back toward its master, the towering, star-spangled hero that had already rescued me once before.

The creature, it turned out, was faster than even the agile Captain America. As soon as it realized that it was comically outmanned, it hissed like a viper and dropped to all fours. Before either I, my captor, or my savior could react, the _thing_ scuttled past me into the dark alleyway behind us with a speed that was, needless to say, inhuman.

"Damn," I hissed, as I threw my head back to connect with my assailant's nose.

There was a shout of pain and then I couldn't see the Captain in my periphery. There was another grunt of pain behind me, which coincided with the sound of a fist connecting to flesh and bone. The man who had been pinning me to his sweaty body (and who smelled unpleasantly of rotting fish) let go of me abruptly and I spun around on my heels to see him face-down on the ground behind me. Captain America towered over him, stern and deeply concerned. I could tell by the downward curl of his lips that he was less than impressed with had happened.

Still, he spared a few moments to be concerned about my well-being.

"You okay…Father?"

I had to force myself not to smile at the brief hesitation in his question. Clearly, the memory of having run across me, unmasked and "normal" in the Battle of New York was still fresh in his mind. His eyes flickered down toward my chest and he seemed to breathe a heavier sigh, as if of relief, when he saw nothing to prove his address incorrect, as before.

It was a little sobering to remind myself that the truth of my identity lay underneath a few mere layers of cloth. The straight lines of my thigh-length white business coat hid the curves of my hips and my compression shirt – a normal accessory of transgendered men, to flatten their chests as they prepared themselves psychologically and hormonally for surgery – was all that hid the truth of my gender. My hair was safely pinned underneath the skin-tight hood that I used as a mask (not dissimilar in construction or appearance to the Captain's own mask) and my wide-brimmed fedora, along with the darkness, hid any sign of unusual bulges that might have otherwise hinted at my hidden hair.

I reminded myself, as I gazed across the fallen body between us, into the Captain's piercing blue eyes that the obstruction of my identity was for the best. It was what super-heroes did – unless, of course, you were Tony Starke, or high-profile like Captain America.

So, I accepted his title of "Father" – it was not the first time I had been called such in the course of my vigilante work. It would not be the last.

"Yes," I rasped.

My voice was made unrecognizable by a voice changing device I wore around my throat; it was cutting-edge technology, built upon existing models that could be easily bought for civilian use. It was a perk of working for my particular organization – I had access to quite a number of nifty toys. I had requested the voice changer after settling upon my disguise; I needed something to make my voice deeper and slower, otherwise I would blow my cover just by opening my mouth. I tried not to talk much, though, while I was night-lighting as Priest; the voice changer made my throat feel funny and I often lost my voice the next day, if I spoke too much during the night.

"What was that thing?" Captain America jerked his bare chin toward the darkness behind us, where the human-creature-thing had disappeared.

"I don't know," I shrugged, as I picked my way over the motionless form of my attacker. "Never seen anything like it," I added softly, as if to myself.

"Hm," the Captain looked over his muscular shoulder and frowned into the night.

I knew what he was thinking. We would both be telling our superiors of this encounter. I had a feeling, though, that _my_ bosses would be much more interested in what had transpired, than S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Well," he pushed breath through his teeth, as if aggravated, as he turned back toward me; his eyes considered me in the washed-out light from the moon above.

I knew he was assessing my level as a threat and my potential as an ally. I had done the same to him, although well before this nocturnal meeting.

"Be safe out here, Father," the star-spangled man turned to leave and then seemed to think of something. "Who you work for?" his eyes searched mine, his gaze guarded; I saw him considering the crosses on my stole and I couldn't hide a wry smile.

"For an organization much older and much stronger than S.H.I.E.L.D," I answered softly. "But, no worries," I added, when I saw the alarm flicker swiftly across his face. "We tend to stay out of the way, as long as we're not bothered. I won't say we work for the same side," I paused – I couldn't speak quickly with the voice changer. "But I am _not_ your enemy."

He nodded at this, seemingly satisfied with the answer. I, on the other hand, felt suddenly unsettled; I knew that he'd be telling Fury about our meeting and I was not keen on the idea. There was no way of conveying that to him, though, without arousing suspicion. I stifled a sigh and admitted to myself that I had had a good long streak of anonymity, but S.H.I.E.L.D was bound to catch up with me sooner or later.

At least, this way, I'd be ready for Fury. Again.

"I'll go get the police for you, Father," the Captain inclined his head toward me and turned away from good; I was surprised by how well he was able to melt into the shadows. "I'll be around; just shout if you ever need some backup."

"Peace be with you, Captain," I made the sign of the cross and watched him fade away into the dark alleyway in front of me.

I lingered for about five minutes or so; just long enough to hear the police sirens begin to wail in the distance. Then I followed the Captain's example and slipped into the darkness – although, admittedly, it was harder to blend in, dressed in white as I was.

My head was full of thoughts, but they were mostly wordless worries about the strangeness that I had seen that night. There was a thought or two of Fury in there, too. But, mostly, I thought of the Captain's smile. And, I smiled a bit myself, in the dark New York night.

I didn't need to be psychic to know that he'd soon find his way to St. Francis. And I purposefully didn't think any deeper about the fact that I was looking forward to meeting him on ordinary terms, without super hero acts and masks between us.

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**Author's Note: **_I love feedback! Also, I was quite hesitant to post this story, so please share your thoughts (and, hopefully, encouragement to continue)! Love it? Hate It? Think I should change something? Think I'm right on target? **Let me know...!**_


	2. Man Out of Time

**Author's Note:**_ I'll be alternating between Captain America's POV and Eli's POV. This one is written in Cap's POV; I'll make sure to make a note at the beginning of each chapter, so you, Dear Reader, can keep track._

_Also...Eli **(pronounced"Ellie")** is an unusual character, I'll be the first to admit. But, please keep reading! In a few chapters she's forced to give up the collar, so don't worry about her being a "preachy" character - I'm actually working really hard to make sure that she doesn't turn into a Mary Sue, or a character that no one can relate to. Please let me know if I hit or miss that mark! :)_

* * *

"_I'm waking up to ash and dust;_

_I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust."_

"**Radioactive"**

**Imagine Dragons**

* * *

**Captain America POV**

"…Oh, you must mean St. Francis' Episcopal Church," the Roman Catholic priest in front of me looked almost apologetic as he put his hand lightly on my elbow and guided me back toward the front doors of his church. "Things have most certainly changed since…well…since the 40's," he titled his head back to look up at me a bit sheepishly. "But, the Roman Catholic Church still doesn't ordain women. If it's a female priest you're looking for, then it's an Episcopalian you'll want."

"There's a difference?" I muttered a bit under my breath.

I had hoped he hadn't heard, but the priest next to me chuckled softly and nodded his head.

"Quite a difference, I assure you," he removed his hand from my arm as we stepped out into the cool, autumn afternoon. "But, theological differences aside, Mother Eli is an excellent woman to seek out these days. If you need an ear to listen, hers is the best."

I stopped myself short before correcting the priest's assumption. I wasn't looking for "Mother Eli" so I could talk to her. Although, as I ran my hand through my short-cropped hair, I couldn't help wondering why I was looking for her. I told myself it was just because I wanted to make sure that she was doing all right. The Battle of New York had left even me rattled – I just wanted to follow up on the brief meeting that we had had in the middle of Manhattan's sudden war zone, and make sure that she was still sane and functioning.

I got directions to the Episcopal church, bid the priest goodbye, and wondered briefly as I loped down the steps of his church, if he was the mysterious, white-dressed priest I had met in the dark nearly two weeks earlier. I paused and looked back over my shoulder at the man, as he stood on the threshold and greeted a parishioner who had passed me on the stairs with her young son. I shook my head, thinking to myself as I looked him up and down – he was too tall and too thin for the man I had met.

There was no doubt in my mind that the masked priest I had met was also a man of the cloth during the day time. I'm not sure why I thought that, but my gut wouldn't be convinced otherwise. It just seemed like a strange persona to adopt if one was not a priest – in my experience, superhero identities were just an exaggerated extension of one's own truest self. Captain America and Steven Rogers were both soldiers; my masked alter ego was simply more "super" than my "normal" self, but really, we were one in the same.

Maybe I was making assumptions based on my own observations and on my own story of superhero-dom, but I still found myself eyeing the ministers and priests that I saw on the street a little bit differently now. I don't know why it mattered so much to me, but there was something about that white-robed priest that had caught my interest. He had been soft-spoken and curiously unarmed, but there had been something about the set of his shoulders and the strength of his stance that suggested that he had a deep reservoir of personal power.

Plus, if nothing else, he had caught my attention because how many vigilantes disguised themselves as priest? He was unconventional, I'd give him that.

And then there was the…thing…that had been about to rip his throat out. That had caught my attention, too. I hadn't mentioned anything to Fury yet, though. I wasn't sure what had prompted my reticence, but I wasn't quite ready to share what I had seen. Fury had his hands full at the moment, anyway – especially with Stark and his random meltdowns. Plus, everyone was still a little shell-shocked; it was only three or so months after the Battle and New York still showed the scars of her encounter with the Chitauri. It was entirely possible that I had imagined the bizarre scene.

I didn't really, truly believe that the Thing had been a simple construct of my overactive imagination. But, I hadn't stopped holding out hope that maybe, just maybe, the world wasn't entirely unraveling down around my ears.

And if I told Fury about what I had seen…well, he'd tear down the city to find the fiend that had rattled the legendary "First Avenger". He would, inevitably, find the Thing, and whatever it was, and wherever it was from. And I wasn't quite sure I was ready to face the possibility that the "modern" world was even stranger than I already knew it was.

* * *

I was so lost in my thoughts, that I didn't really pay attention to where I was, until I stopped in front of a large, Gothic-style church. A lot had changed in seventy years, but the streets of Brooklyn had - by and large - remained the same. It was immensely gratifying to realize that I still knew my way around the main streets at least; what I didn't know what slowly being remapped in my mind, as I prowled around at night. Especially since my encounter two weeks earlier, I had taken to prowling around Brooklyn on the nights I couldn't sleep. Which, as it turned out, were most nights.

I got a nasty jolt of surprise, however, as I eyed the stone-encased sign at the edge of the sidewalk. I blinked at glanced up and down the street - I was precisely where the Roman Catholic priest had told me to be. The irony was, where I was supposed to be was a different church entirely in my memory. In fact, if I hadn't been so distracted by my thoughts, I would have recognized the address immediately - I had gone to the same church for twenty-three years, before joining the Army. The last time I had seen it, it had been St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church.

Now, the sign said "St. Francis' Episcopal Church", plain as day. I pushed a sigh through my clenched teeth and glared at the sign in mounting frustration. Did nothing stay the same?

"'To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven,'" a clear, authoritative voice drew me out of my momentary mope.

I glanced to my left, startled, at the woman who was leaning against the wrought iron fence that separated church property from the street. There was a smile around the corners of her mouth, but her eyes were gentle, almost understanding.

"Ecclesiastes," I grunted, at a loss for anything else to say - was my place out of time that obvious?

"The Byrds, actually," her smile was infectious and it took me a moment to realize that what she said had made no sense whatsoever.

"No...wait...that's a quote from Ecclesiastes," I shook my head as memories of my Catholic childhood surged to the forefront of my mind.

"It's also a song by the Byrds," she suddenly frowned, as if realizing that maybe confusing me over something that should have been perfectly familiar was not the best idea. "I'm sorry," she sighed and reached over to push open the church gate. "I hope I don't come across as flippant. There was a band in the '60's that came out with a song based on that exact passage. So, you're right...but I was specifically quoting the first verse of the song, not the Bible.

"Oh," I pretended to understand and failed miserably.

I glanced from her, to the sign, and felt my mouth turn down into a frown. I usually tried not to mope around when I was out in public, but I couldn't hide the fact that I was feeling rather overwhelmed. Even my month away from New York City and S.H.I.E.L.D., trying to acclimate myself to the new horizons around me, hadn't really done much to prepare me for all the ways that my home had changed.

I also didn't comment that I thought it strange that a priest would quote a secular song. Or, that a secular song would quote the Bible? In any event, the situation was over my personal threshold of "weird."

"Remembering St. Paul's?" she motioned for me to step through the open gate; I grudgingly obliged, no longer certain that I wanted to be here any longer.

"Yea," I ran my fingers through my hair a second time in frustration.

I stopped and looked down at her. She was a lot cleaner than the last time I saw her and there was a welcoming smile in her blue-green eyes. She no longer possessed the grim-lipped and urgent look that had been on her face in the epicenter of battle. In fact, she looked quite at home and I marveled over the thought that she appeared perfectly suited to the collar around her throat.

"Mother Eli?" I stuck out my hand toward her - peculiarity of a female priest aside, I had let my manners slip long enough.

"Captain," her round face brightened in a true smile as she grasped my hand.

She didn't shake my hand like the women I was once used to; she had a strong grip, a man's grip. Although, there had once been a woman who had shaken my hand as she had...I thought wistfully of Peggy, who had fought for her place in the world and had never apologized for the gender she was born with. I tightened my own grip in response and looked Mother Eli in the eye, as equals. She lifted her chin proudly, as if reading my thoughts.

"Please, call me Steve," I found myself saying, although I hadn't intended to drop the formalities.

"Steve," her smile widened and she stepped back to usher me forward toward the waiting church. "Welcome to St. Francis'. Thanks for stopping by."

"No problem," I ducked my head and glanced sideways at the stone facade to the left of the red-painted doors; why did she make me feel so awkward? "I just wanted to drop by and make sure you were doing okay."

"Oh," this seemed to surprise her, as it was her turn to look away, toward the right. "I'm doing well. Keeping busy, that's for sure."

There was an awkward pause as I stepped into the cool shadows inside the narthex, the part of the church that lay immediately behind the front doors. I didn't linger long there, but instead made a beeline for the nave, which would be the most recognizable part of the building from my seventy year old memories.

I didn't realize, until I had stepped up beside the very first row of pews, that I had been holding my breath. I looked to the left and to the right of me and up toward the buttressed ceiling.

It was exactly as I remembered it. Some things were different, like the baptismal font and the color of the cushions on the pews, but everything else looked relatively untouched. The glass windows were the same as they had ever been; the chancel, where I had once sat with the choir in my day, was still the same dark, polished wood it had been before I left for Europe. If anything, the wood and the furnishings looked darker with age; I felt as if I had stepped back in time.

"You...they...it's been well preserved," I breathed in disbelief as I involuntarily sank into the nearest pew.

"Thank you," Mother Eli continued to stand by my side, her hands clasped demurely in front of her as she joined me in staring contemplatively down the long length of the church, toward the same altar that I had stared at as a boy. "I've had to fight the vestry once or twice over modernizing the sanctuary, but thankfully, we've directed those efforts elsewhere. This part of the church has remained practically untouched, thanks to its status as a historic landmark."

"Good," I couldn't think of anything more eloquent in order to verbalize my appreciation for finally finding something that, like myself, Time hadn't touched. We shared a companionable silence for at least five or ten minutes; I enjoyed the sense of peace and belonging I suddenly felt. It was the first time since being unfrozen, that I had found some place where I felt like maybe I belonged.

"Where did you used to sit?"

The perception of her question threw me off guard. I looked over at her - even sitting, she wasn't any taller than me - and flashed her a grateful smile.

"I used to sit up there," I pointed to the chancel. "And when I wasn't singing in the choir, I sat there," I pointed to the far right seat on the second pew in the front. "Used to spend a lot of time in here after my parents died."

I wasn't sure where the voluntary personal details was coming from, but it was my experience that that sort of thing often came out around men of the cloth. I glanced sideways at Mother Eli again. Apparently, it worked for women of the cloth as well.

"When did they start ordaining women?" I blurted out.

I didn't know how else to approach the elephant in the room. The sight of her, standing there in somber black, with her white clerical collar, was definitely at odds with her long hair and ample chest. I jerked my eyes down at my hands, after realizing that my eyes hadn't quite made it the whole way up toward her face. I kept fixating on the area between her neck and her waist, and I could feel my ears growing hot in response to my unintentional rudeness.

"Depends on who you're talking about," if Mother Eli noticed me ogling her, she graciously overlooked it. "The Roman Catholics, for example, never have and probably never will recant on their traditional position. But, there are several Christian denominations who have started ordaining women. I'd say it's a close tie between the Episcopalians and the United Church of Christ as to who ordained first. But, bottom line - women started being ordained for ministry in the 70's."

"I thought the Bible said women couldn't be...well...ordained," I finished my sentence lamely; I realized as I said it that I didn't really know how to phrase that statement.

What did it say about women in the Church? I had been too busy surviving the Great Depression, Nazis, and seventy years of the Antarctic, to really argue the subtleties of Christian theology.

"Depends on how you read the Bible," Mother Eli, who clearly had a better grip on the theological situation, quipped back with a small smile around the corner of her eyes.

"Er…" I didn't have anything to say to that, except a very lame - "I thought there was only one way to do that."

"Au contraire," she looked me right in the eyes and I had to stifle yet another resigned sigh; things had changed way too much, way too fast. "There are many ways to perceive or interpret one single thing. Just...well...look at the Battle of New York," she waved her hand toward the heavy oak doors behind us and it was her turn to sigh in frustration. "For millennia, we thought Thor and Loki were gods at best, or characters from ancient mythology at worst. Instead, we find out in the space of a day that they are neither. All preconceived 'knowledge' - poof!" she threw up her hands as if to simulate the way that precious and long-held beliefs had a tendency of suddenly evaporating on the unsuspecting.

"Bet you're having a fun time of things lately," I reached the conversation's logical conclusion and shook my head slowly.

Was there even any point in believing in anything anymore? I didn't dare voice the thought, but I was certainly not self-absorbed enough to think that I was the only person thinking such thoughts. I was sure that in the last few months, Mother Eli had had her fill of spiritual crises.

The last thing she needed was mine.

"It's certainly kept me on my toes," she chuckled wryly and shook her head as well. "But mostly, people are just hurting. And that's no different than any time before."

The silence of the nave seeped between her words and left the conversation dead between us. I wasn't ready to delve into my own doubts and insecurities - forget God, I wasn't even sure if I was willing to have faith in my fellow man or even in myself. I stuck out like a sore thumb; half of what Fury, Stark, and Banner said went completely over my head. The only familiarity I had found was here in the church of my childhood, but even here, in the untouched, unchanging oaken pews, there were unsettling differences. Like female priests and talk of interpreting the Bible differently than in the ways I was taught as a boy.

Nothing ever stayed the same. At some intuitive level, we all know this. But...nothing drove the point home more than going to sleep in 1943 and waking up again in 2013. New millennium, new generation, new wars, new technologies, new beliefs. I was so lost - not physically, but I was a goner mentally and existentially. I was the wrong man in the wrong place in the wrong time.

Mother Eli seemed to sense some of my inner turmoil, as I stared unseeing straight ahead, past the altar, into a time I would never get back. She put her small hand on my shoulder and promptly startled me back into the present. I jerked underneath her touch, but she stayed steady and I could feel the warmth of her fingers seeping through my cotton-polyester-blend shirt to my skin below. I looked over at her hand and absently noted that she had painted her short nails a very soft pink - it was an almost peculiar gesture of femininity in a figure that was, otherwise, strangely neutral. I lifted my eyes and looked at her face; for a moment, I was surprised to see that she didn't wear any makeup. She was still quite pretty without any of the usual feminine adornment, and under other circumstances (read: if she wasn't standing in front of me in a priest's collar) I would have been attracted to her.

She said nothing, as she stood there with her hand laying comfortingly on my shoulder, as if to ground me (however unwillingly) into the modern present. I was thankful for her silence; any acknowledgement of my apparent sadness would have been awkward to address with a total stranger. Especially, a female stranger. Banner had assured me that this was new era, where men could express their inner emotions without severe social reprisal, but I wasn't buying it. Until I knew her better...if I ever knew her better...I wasn't about to drop the facade and show Mother Eli the boy from Brooklyn who still lived inside of Captain America.

I wasn't showing that side of myself to anyone. I rather thought the chances of me putting down the internal mask of Captain America was as likely as Peggy resurrecting from the dead.

Peggy.

I shouldn't have thought of her.

"Say," I twisted in my seat so that Mother Eli's hand fell naturally to the back of the pew; I suddenly didn't want to be touched, didn't want to think about the past. "Have you heard of a masked vigilante on the streets around here?"

Mother Eli blinked, clearly surprised by the sudden change in topic. To her credit, she followed my lead and carried the conversation forward toward a grounding discussion of the present. At the moment, I had no desire to speak of the past or the future.

"You mean Priest?" something like wariness crept into her hazel eyes.

"I would assume so," I rubbed my chin thoughtfully; my eyes narrowed as I recalled the man's peculiar choice of costume. "I ran across a man wearing a white suit, a clerical collar, and a red stole. Can't say I got his name," the sides of my mouth quirked up in a brief smile.

"Yup, that's Priest," Mother Eli nodded an affirmative as her expression turned thoughtful. "He showed up here about a year and a half, or so, ago. Been doing good in the streets since then. Nearly had Brooklyn's violent crime statistics down into the double digits, before the Battle of New York.

"What do you know about him?" I perked up, instantly intrigued.

There were easier ways to get this information - if, in fact, Mother Eli had any information to provide - but all those ways included either Fury or Stark. And I had no interest in involving S.H.I.E.L.D just yet.

"Not much - no one does," the petite priest shrugged her shoulders and threw her hands up as if to say, "don't try to prove me wrong." "I just know that since he showed up, crimes of all sort have decreased, and all of the churches and social services in the area have had a marked increase in patronage. Would appear he doesn't just settle for saving people from the bad guys. A lot of us clergy have surmised that he seems to steer the down-and-out to services that can help them sustain a life off of the streets."

"So, a good guy," I said, as if to myself.

It helped me make sense of this crazy, crazy world, by putting things into categories like "good" and "bad." I knew that they were horribly simplistic categories, at the very least, but they provided me some semblance of ordered thinking. Of course, such thinking could only get me so far…I still didn't have a category for the likes of Stark in.

"Well, he's does seem quite conscientious. As far as I know - and mind you, the police around here would have a better idea about Priest than I would - he hasn't ever killed anyone. At most, he's incapacitated all of the perpetrators he's come across and called in the authorities to take care of them once he's calmed the victims down."

"You seem to know a bit about him," I eyed Mother Eli with interest - she was proving to be as valuable a source of information as any law officer I could have approached.

"I have several policemen in my congregation," she deflected my interest with a winning smile and a shrug. "Plus, Priest is a person of interest for us clergy," her eyes danced mischievously and I was quite captivated by the sight. "Several of us have bets on who it could be."

"Any leads?" I decided to ignore the admission that clergymen - clergywomen? - were betting.

"There are a few," Mother Eli surprised me even further still by taking to the conversation with such relish and perching herself on the back of the pew in front of me.

Her foot nearly touched my knee and I didn't think I could recall a more adorable - and contradictory - sight as her sitting quite inappropriately on the back of a hundred year old pew and kicking her feet back and forth above the floor. She pursed her lips and looked positively Puckish.

"We all agree it has to be someone short - unfortunately, we have quite a few short clergy in the area. Some folks think it might be Pastor Michaels, the Unitarian Universalist minister down on West 8th Street. Another popular candidate is Father Malone, at St. Francis' Roman Catholic Church."

"Been there," I interjected; it was hard not to catch her unexpected enthusiasm and I allowed myself to grin conspiratorially at her. "I didn't see any short priests."

"Then you probably ran into Father Jones; he's in training there to take over once Father Malone retires."

"Retires?" I repeated incredulously.

"Yea," Mother Eli seemed to read my mind and nodded sagely. "I say Father Malone is right out the running, because he's well into his 60's. I know Priest doesn't kill anyone, but I do know he fights. Some of my parishioners have told me about how roughed up some of the perps are when Priest hands them over. I doubt Father Malone could rearrange the face of a six-foot, two-hundred-pound, twenty year old and still move the next day."

"Probably not," I agreed.

"Then there's Chaplain Yancey, at Lutheran Medical Center. He's the favorite; seems to fit the bill. The only problem is, he's a conservative Presbyterian. I highly doubt he'd adopt a Roman Catholic persona."

"Then it's probably a safe bet to assume Priest's a Catholic," I suggested.

"That's the argument of every Catholic clergy person I know," she beamed at me and the smile transfigured her face; she looked years younger in an instant and her eyes sparkled. "We don't know of many Protestants who would dress up as a priest. Or, so accurately."

"You know what he looks like?" my eyebrows rose toward my hair line in surprise.

"Eye witness sketches," she winked playfully. "Nearly every clergy person in Brooklyn has been asked to look at sketches of Priest and speculate on his identity. Although...some of us have admitted that even if we had a suspicion, we probably wouldn't let on to it."

I just stared. Clergy? Lying? I mean, sure, they were human. But to admit it so blatantly?

"Oh, don't be scandalized," Mother Eli wagged a finger at me. "We have a genuine do-gooder in our midst. Do you really think that, if we got down to it, the fine citizens of Brooklyn would try to uncover his identity, just to sate some media curiosity? The police who have shown us clergy the eye witnesses sketches aren't really looking for an ID. I've had more than one of my parishioners admit that I've been shown those sketches just so the precinct can look at the newspapers and say, 'so sorry, we tried!'"

I thought my eyebrows might start permanently residing in my hairline, but she had a great point. It was logical, rational...and just this side of honest. Despite her admonition, I was a little scandalized.

I decided, in the following silence, that it might be a good idea to redirect the conversation to safer shores.

"Well, if this guy is Catholic, who does that leave us?"

"That leaves us with a small handful of Anglican, Episcopalian, and Roman Catholic priests, which really narrows the possibilities down," she gracefully followed the conversation as I switched back to the safer topic of Priest's true identity. "There's two possible Anglican priests - Father Calvin and Father Thorne - then there's our sole Roman Catholic nominee, Father Malone, who we've already more or less ruled out. Then you're left with one male Episcopal priest and five female priests."

"Five?" I repeated, faintly.

"Yeah. Incidentally, that's the exact number of female priests in Brooklyn. All of us are short of stature - the tallest female clergy woman that I know around here is Pastor Durman, the United Methodist minister down the street," she jerked her thumb to the left, as if to indicate just where "down the street" meant. "And she's only five foot seven or so."

"You honestly don't believe that Priest is a woman, though?" I tilted my head to the side and looked at Mother Eli curiously; she sure did seem to enjoy turning my assumptions on their ear.

"There is a distinct possibility, actually," Mother Eli replied smoothly; she didn't seem ruffled in the slightest by my doubt. "Although, the likeliest candidates are Mother Nan, Mother Jennifer, and myself."

I hadn't expected her to implicate herself. I stared at her, impressed.

"And what makes you three 'likely'?"

"We know martial arts," she answered succinctly and pursed her lips, as if to hide a smile.

"I see," I was at a loss for words.

I did, however, glance over her with a critical eye. It was hard to ascertain her level of fitness; her button-up shirt and tailored pants didn't really accentuate any possible musculature. In fact, she looked positively innocuous - curvy, with a pretty face and hair longer than Thor's, but not particularly stunning otherwise. She certainly didn't look like someone who could take a thug in hand-to-hand combat.

I thought back to Priest, recalling the set of his shoulders and the cut of his clothes. Ruefully, I admitted - if only to myself - that he hadn't looked like the type of character to take on a gang of five or six men by himself, either. Priestly garb did not really call attention to a clergyman's (clergywoman's?) physical appearance. It was as hard to ascertain what kind of physique lay beneath Mother Eli's conservative clothes, as it was to recall what kind of physique Priest had possessed.

In fact, with the exception of such a distinctive disguise, there hadn't been much about Priest to really leap out to the casual observer. It wasn't like his whole body was put on display in armored, skin-tight spandex. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat - I was not exactly a fan of the changes S.H.I.E.L.D had made to my classic look…

Back to Priest… The only thing I did remember about the man, was the sense of strongly controlled power that had exuded from him. He had comported himself as a man who knew that he was in possession of some rare quality that held him above the heads of normal men. I eyed Mother Eli critically one last time. She exuded a sense of genuine warmth and intelligence - but deadly power? I looked her over from head to toe. Not even a smidgen.

"If you look me over like that one more time, Steve, I'm going to ask you if you like what you see," Mother Eli broke me out of my reverie with a bemused tinge to her voice.

I glanced hastily up at her face, to see her smiling wryly at me, an eyebrow cocked. A part of me was abashed at having looked her over so obviously. Another part of me was rendered completely tongue-tied by the suggestiveness of her words.

A priest? Really?

"Sorry, Mother," I mumbled and ducked my head contritely. "I didn't mean to be lewd."

"It's fine," she laughed it off and touched my arm comfortingly as she slid off of the back of the pew in front of me. "You just keep looking at me as if you've never seen a woman before."

"Well...it has been a while," I admitted and then actually heard what I had said and fought the urge to smack my face into the pew. "I mean...it's been a while since I've been around a woman," I thought another moment and amended hastily, "A woman who's not the Black Widow. I mean…" I completely lost steam and just looked at Mother Eli imploringly.

"A woman who is not a fellow combatant?" her smile set everything right and I nodded in relief.

"And well...in my defense," I offered hopefully, with a vague gesture toward her throat. "I've never seen a female priest before. You're a first!"

"Well, I hope I haven't left you with a poor impression," she slipped past me into the aisle and I caught a whiff of spice as she moved by.

"No," I shook my head earnestly. "Can't say I have any preconceived expectations. I'm just glad you let me come sit in here for a while," I gestured toward the nave as a whole.

"You're welcome here any time," she smiled gently and I suddenly felt as if I had found a balm in Gilead. "Consider St. Francis your touchstone, for when you feel lost."

"Thank you, Mother Eli," I meant my gratitude as I had never meant it before.

_I need it_, I added to myself, as she moved down the aisle, further into the nave toward the altar. I watched her walk away and didn't quite know what to think.

She was different - as different as everything else I had encountered since running out into Time Square and finding myself surrounded by bright lights, loud noises, and buildings I had never seen before in my life. If anything, Mother Eli perhaps encapsulated all of the differences and inexplicable changes that had happened to the world while I slept. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around her, truth be told.

But, she had given me permission to visit St. Francis as much as I so desired. And, for that, I could never repay her kindness. My eyes lingered on the familiar altar, on the pew where I used to sit, on the stained glass windows that had remained unchanged. She had given me an oasis, a place to think and maybe figure out where I stood in the overwhelming strangeness of this brave new world.

I vowed right then and there, that I would not judge Mother Eli. Like Father Stoward, the priest who had presided over St. Paul's when I was but a boy, she had shown me great kindness. I vowed to watch over her; it was the only way I could repay her generosity.

And, I had to wonder, as she opened a door to the right of the altar and disappeared into what I knew to be the sacristy, how she knew to be so understanding of my plight. I was glad she was, though. I needed St. Francis and its warm familiarity more than anything else in the whole world.

And, I guess, in that moment, our friendship was forged - Mother Eli's and mine. I wasn't sure where it would take us, but I was thankful to have finally found a friend. Maybe, with her help, I could figure out how to belong.

* * *

**Author's Note:**_Love it? Like it? Hate it? Let me know...! I thrive on feedback! :)_


	3. Welcome to the New Age

"_I'm waking up, I feel it in my bones,_

_Enough to make my systems blow._

_Welcome to the new age, to the new age."_

"**Radioactive"**

**Imagine Dragons**

* * *

**Eli's POV**

Captain America quickly became a regular at St. Francis. I had had some inkling of what it would mean to him, to have a place from his own time to slip off to, where it was peaceful and meditative. But, I didn't quite realize how much my simple gesture would affect his entire demeanor.

I don't know what Steve Rogers was like outside of St. Francis' four walls, but within the church he was in turns contemplative and boyish. He was always polite and always, _always _willing to lend a out, he was quite the excellent handyman to have around; a historical monument St. Francis' might have been, but the congregation had to pay a small fortune alone just to keep the historical bits functional. Steve, however, got the old building's quirks on a level that was almost intuitive, and seemed quite happy to squirm around in tight crawl spaces and stick his head under leaky pipes on the church's behalf.

I protested at first, especially when my first introduction to Steve's desire to help out was the sight of him sprawled out underneath the sacristy sink. He was wearing a tight white t-shirt that left nothing to the imagination; upon further reflection, I decided that was probably not his fault as I doubted _any_ cotton undershirt shirt _wouldn't_ mold itself to his muscles. Sturdy combat boots and worn blue jeans completed the look and I had to take a moment in the sacristy doorway to roll my eyes toward heaven. Most of my congregation was comprised of Baby Boomers; good-looking adult men of my own age were not in an abundance in my church or any church in Brooklyn. I didn't think St. Francis had seen so much unadulterated masculine prime in several decades and it was a little startling to walk in on, displayed with such casual indifference on the church's cold stone floor.

It also didn't help that Steve favored a style of dress that was almost a perfect copy of my late husband's preferred look. In some ways, my heart stuttered to life at the sight of blue jeans and white t-shirts, only to fall back into a disappointed slumber when reality caught up with my eyes. It had been five years since Tim's untimely death - it was still entirely too soon for me to erase the memory of him from my mind whenever I saw something that reminded me of him.

"Really, Steve, you don't have to do that," became my perpetual refrain for about three weeks, until the Captain came out in him.

"I'm well aware that I don't have to _do_ anything, Mother Eli," he grabbed my forearms quite forcefully and steered me away from the patch of wall in the narthex that he was trying to replaster.

He backed me up into a chair by the church's front door and used both his size and strength to push me down. I sat down with a soft plop and stared up at him in surprise. It was the first time he had ever touched me and I instinctively shied away from his face, which was inches from mine.

He was so _big_.

"Just let me help, okay?" the look in his blue eyes was surprisingly vulnerable.

"You know I can call a contractor, right?" I countered back feebly.

"That's money your church doesn't have."

I rankled a little bit at his perception. We were _not_ the "rich" or "fashionable" church, like St. John's on the other side of Brooklyn. It cost my parishioners dearly, at times, to keep our building up to code and all too often that money came out of my own paycheck, or even worse, out of our community outreach programs.

Steve was more perceptive than I gave him credit for; most of my congregation lived on their Social Security pension. We could, indeed, benefit from a handyman who didn't seem to want compensation in return.

Still…

"It isn't right for you to be fixing all of our problems, without some sort of payment," I argued, stubborn to the end.

"I don't need money," Steve shook his head, his jaw set in what I could tell was an iron-clad determination. "And I don't _want_ it."

He let go of me and stepped away; cool air from the open door washed over me and I suddenly felt very, very fragile. We considered each other for a moment - I from my reluctant seat and he from his towering height above me. I finally sighed and closed my eyes in a concession of defeat; I pinched the bridge of my nose and fought off the start of a headache.

"Why?" I asked the darkness on the inside of my eyelids.

"'Why' what?" I felt his presence recede as he stepped back over to the wall.

"Why are you doing this for us?" there was a part of me that knew the answer, even as I asked the question.

There was a brief silence and I peeked through my lashes to watch him work. His back was turned toward me and the muscles of his shoulder played smoothly through the stretched white fabric of his shirt.

"I'm not a superhero here," he finally said, simply, after a long, contemplative pause.

He didn't elaborate and a surprisingly comfortable silence stretched out between us. I took a few minutes to indulge in the unexpected luxury of having no where in particular to go and I tucked my left foot up underneath my opposite thigh. I thought I knew what he was trying to say, though, and I lost myself in reverie.

I had been underneath the microscope - both literally _and_ figuratively - since I was 10 years old, when puberty hit. That's when I came into possession of powers that had lain dormant inside of me until then; that's when the whole medical community descended upon me in clinical interest. They never found a name for what boiled within me, so in absence of anything else, they fell back on the medieval standby - "magic", they called it. Specifically, "_blood_ magic."

I discovered, to my initial horror, that I could coerce the very essence of a person's life force - their heart, their blood - and either heal or destroy. In the beginning, it seemed like magic to me, too. A horrendous, unspeakable magic that I had tried to cut out of my own veins. I'd spent a few months in a psych ward after those attempts. And then..._they_ found me and the fight for my very soul began.

Yes, I mused. I could empathize, perhaps, with Captain America's private plight. Everyone wanted you on your side when you possessed qualities that surpassed ordinary human expectation. Everyone wanted to make a hero or a villain out of you - usually without consideration to your own personal desires. I had seen Steve on the TV more than one night in a row; I had seen how he hid his face behind his mask and tried to use it as a shield between himself and the news crews. And because he was a hero - a paragon of old-fashioned, innate _goodness_ - everyone expected him to save them.

We had no expectations of him here at St. Francis. At least, _I_ didn't and I was reasonably sure my congregation felt the same. We were just flattered that he graced us with his presence and I had been mildly impressed to find that there was a sort of unspoken pact among my parishioners. The news cameras had not descended upon our tiny Brooklyn oasis and I rather suspected that even S.H.I.E.L.D didn't know where he disappeared to for several afternoon hours two or three times a week. No one at St. Francis was talking, it would seem, and I was proud of the confidence we offered him.

Although, I mulled, it was not unusual, perhaps, that he had found more than just a personal solace here. There were at least ten or so members of the congregation who were old enough to remember him from his own time. Several of our oldest male members had served in the War; one of our women was a veteran bomber pilot, who had ferried over twenty B-52's across the Atlantic to Great Britain. As soon as Steve's schedule became apparent - every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday afternoon from 1 to 5, every last one of them found some reason to show up unannounced while he was puttering around the premises.

Although he often seemed sad after talking to them, Steve also seemed to find comfort in their companionship. He even struck up what appeared to be a very lively friendship with Betty, the bomber pilot, to the point where, when she didn't show up one Thursday as was her custom now, he enlisted my help and went in search of her. Turns out, she had thrown out her hip and had to be hospitalized; Steve now included a round at the hospital on Thursday afternoons, usually accompanied by flowers and books.

No, the WWII veterans weren't talking to outside forces - nor were any of the veterans, of which there were a large number at St. Francis. Those who weren't old enough to remember Steve before he disappeared at the end of the War, were old enough to have been raised by fathers and mothers who had idolized him. I was not the only one who seemed to realize that Steve needed a place to hide from the world; I was proud of my congregation for being intuitive to his needs.

"Well…" I pulled myself out of my own thoughts and couldn't resist the urge to try and offer him _something_. "Please don't hesitate to ask if there's something we could do for you in return."

He glanced over his shoulder, his gaze almost shy beneath his long lashes. His boyish smile crept slowly across his face and his words were earnest.

"You've all already paid me back. Trust me," he seemed to realize the depth of his confession and turned abruptly back toward the wall, directing the last of his words to the drying plaster. "I can remember who I am, here."

"Just don't hold too hard onto the past, Steve," I felt compelled to speak those words softly; as glad as I was to provide him a place of solace, I also feared that St. Francis might hold him back from adapting to the modern world.

"Right now, it's all I've got to keep me sane," he thankfully didn't take offense to my words, though he continued to grimly address the wall. "I feel like I'm two people at once," I knew, intuitively, that his words cost him a large part of his pride. "I can't escape the present when I'm Captain America - it's all around me. I wear it. I use it. I _fight _it."

He slapped the last layer of plaster onto the wall with something like anger. It as the closest glimpse of his hidden frustration that I had seen yet. I felt my eyebrows raise in silent admiration and surprise.

"And then here...when I'm just Steve...I feel like I'm in a time machine. Stuck in the past. Stuck somewhere between _normal_ and…" he paused before biting out the word. "_Freak_."

He attacked the poor wall with such vigor that I was almost afraid he'd undo all the meticulous work he had done up to that point. I shifted in my seat and put both of my feet on the floor, preparing myself to get up and go over to him to try and calm him down. His words froze me in place, however.

"You know, I just wanted _normal_ things out of life. A wife, kids, a home I could grow old in," he stopped abusing the poor plaster and let his hands fall to his side in something like defeat; his great shoulders sagged and still he kept his back to me, as if it was easier to confess without seeing my face. "I feel _almost_ normal here, you know. I can do just _normal_ things - fix a leaky faucet, fix the wall, talk about things I know. But even here, I'm constantly reminded about how _abnormal_ I am. I should be Betty's age," his words hardened in anger, in hurt, in something almost like contempt. "But instead, I can't age. I can't die. I can't even get drunk."

"Well, I wouldn't recommend pining away for a drunken oblivion," I checked myself, realizing that I might sound unintentionally flippant. "There are better ways to cope, you know."

"No, I_ don't_ know," Steve lifted his head and contemplated the high-vaulted ceiling above us. "My...side effects...aren't exactly something they covered in boot camp."

"You'll figure it out," I tried to encourage him as best I could and in the process, lost track of what exactly I was saying. "You're not the only one to face this quandary."

"What?" he suddenly turned and looked at me; I froze, as I finally realized what exactly I had let slip. "Who? There's others like me? How?"

His questions were rapid fire and I had to lift a hand in feeble surrender in order to staunch the flow. I also had to do some quick thinking - that was _not_ something I _ever_ meant to let slip.

"Pastoral confidence," I protested and it was only half a lie; I knew many things that I wouldn't have known without having taken my oaths.

Steve didn't know that those oaths of silent confidence were _not_ the ones involved in my actual ordination or in my pastoral training. He also didn't need to know about the unspoken oaths I had vowed, to protect the identities of others I had come to know long before taking up the minister's mantle or my warrior's stole.

"I can tell you, though," I added, when I saw suspicion creep into his narrowed eyes. "That you're not the only person I've come across with regenerative powers."

I thought of Victor, who had hunted me down and of Logan, who had saved me. I thought of Fury, who also never seemed to age, despite the fact that my organization had records of him from WWII.

"And how do _they_ cope?" Steve's brows knit together in frustration, although something like wonder light up his face for just a moment or two.

I was surprised by how easily he capitulated to my rather weak defense of "pastoral confidence.' I supposed it was his Roman Catholic upbringing; doubtless, he had sat in the Confessional more than once and the confidence of a priest in that context was taken as seriously (and as for granted) as the Hippocratic Oath.

"With anger and violence, mostly," I admitted wryly, before meeting his eyes across the narrow width of the narthex. "But, I think you're better than that."

The skin high in Steve's cheeks flushed as he took in my words and also as he seemed to realize that we were now looking at one another. He dropped his gaze almost shyly, knelt hastily, and started fiddling with the tools and drop cloth he had on the floor next to him.

"I think I'm a little archaic to be of much use nowadays," he admitted softly after several minutes of concentrated silence.

"Maybe instead of forcing yourself to get to the world's level, you should try and make the world meet you at _your_ level," I leaned forward in my seat, intent on the conversation and Steve's reactions to it.

"What do you mean?" he frowned at the drop cloth as he began to fold it up.

"I mean, it's not a _bad_ thing that you're a little 'archaic'," I gently urged him to take my words seriously. "This world just gets crazier every day. Sure, for your own sanity, you might want to adapt to modern life. But, that doesn't mean you have to change who you are - it doesn't mean you have to stop being chivalrous, it doesn't mean you have to stop being kind, it doesn't mean you have to stop having hope, it doesn't mean you have to stop pursuing the simple things in life.

"We're so connected technologically, most of our younger generations are beginning to grow up without basic social graces. Men and women are constantly at war with one another for dominance and equality. We've all but forgotten the horrors of world war and holocaust. We barely know how to set aside our differences to unite behind a common cause," I silently willed him to look at me - I needed to know he heard me. "We could use your example, your perspective."

"And you think I can fit into the modern world and _not_ change?" he did look at me and his gaze was piercing.

"No, I think that you can fit into the modern world and still be true to the values that defined that scrawny boy from Brooklyn," I corrected him, my voice barely above a whisper; the air was strangely charged between us and I was suddenly very aware of the steady beat of his heart and the strong flow of blood beneath his skin.

I was connecting to him, as I did with anyone in whom I believed. I wondered if he could feel what I could feel, if he too, felt the force of my conviction. His expression didn't change, but the lines between his eyes tightened just slightly, as if he was concentrating on some inexplicable part of me that couldn't be seen.

"You can stay true to who you are and still keep yourself open to new ways of thinking, new possibilities," I hoped he heard the genuine earnestness in my voice.

I had once had to learn to do the same. After being shunned by my family, after being pressured to join a cause I didn't believe in, after paying the price for resistance, after having my total sense of self deconstructed...after all of that, I had learned to put myself back together again. I had learned who I really was, underneath all of the bullshit of my past. I had learned to accept my fate, accept my powers. And from that, a Priest had been born.

I could of course, say none of that to Steve. But, I willed him to understand that there was more to my words than I was telling him. That my words, my beliefs, were backed up by hard realities.

I couldn't tell if he heard between the lines or not.

"I don't know how to do that," I could tell he wanted to look away, but he kept his gaze steady, only glancing away, just as he started to speak.

"I think you'll figure it out," I offered him what I hoped was an encouraging smile.

He remained stoic, almost uncomfortable in his intensity. Finally, he broke eye contact with me and gathered up his tools.

"I'm not used to speaking to people like this, you know," he spoke as if it cost him dearly to put his thoughts into words.

"I can tell," I stood up with him and we considered each other somberly from across the narrow room. "What made you talk?"

"Desperation," he admitted awkwardly to his feet, unable to look at me in the moment of his confession.

I knew we had only scratched the surface, but some of Steve's pent up frustration had vented. He seemed a little calmer; earlier and in the days before, he seemed wound up tight, a sure sign that there was a lot on his mind. He still stood with his shoulders tensed defensively, but he seemed to breathe a little easier.

"And the collar helps," he added and glanced over at me as if to see if I would take offense that.

I didn't, but I was a little surprised.

"The one person who ever knew the most about me - besides my best friend, that is - used to call this church his home," Steve continued, as if to clarify the source of his trust. "I would have lived on the streets, if it hadn't been for him."

"Father Stoward?"

He blinked, clearly surprised that I would know his former priest's name.

"Yeah. He was a good man."

We left the conversation there and Steve continued to come back to St. Francis like clockwork, every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday afternoon. He didn't open up to me again, but in the moments when I would come across him sitting in the nave, staring contemplatively toward the altar, I knew he was turning our conversation over in his mind. And, meanwhile, my Order - who kept a close eye on the personal lives of all its members - had sent me a missive, a single note -

_"S.H.I.E.L.D is watching."_

I did not, however, expect S.H.I.E.L.D to come calling three days later.

* * *

"It's been a long time, Elinor."

I bolted instantaneously from the chair behind my desk and practically propelled myself toward the old, faded book I kept on the other side of my printer, tucked discreetly beneath a Book of Common Prayer. Only until I had that comforting leather tome in my hand, did I look up toward my unexpected and equally unwelcome guest.

Nick Fury hovered on the threshold, like a looming bird of prey. It took every ounce of self control that I possessed, to keep from using my power and forcing his body out of the doorway and into the dark hallway beyond.

I was usually home at such an hour, but I had lingered behind to answer some emails and finish up some business. The church doors were locked and until now, there had been no one else on the premise except for myself. My little lamp desk was the only light to be seen in the whole building and I felt the sudden urge to turn on every single light and search every single corner.

Fury, in my experience, didn't usually come unaccompanied.

"What do you want?" I cut straight through the niceties; I didn't figure Fury would mind.

"I've come to offer you another job with S.H.I.E.L.D," he stepped into the wan light and I practically growled at his insolence.

"Get lost. I told you 'no' once and I still mean it," I gripped my book harder.

Fury's one good eye fell on the ancient bound leather and paper in my hand and his expression tightened, however slightly. We stood and considered each other for a moment and I debated silently whether or not to forcibly remove him from the property.

"Even if it was a non-combative position?" he met my gaze and raised an eyebrow.

"Not even," I stuck out my chin stubbornly.

"I'm impressed with the effect you've had on Rogers," Fury suddenly changed the topic - or seemed to, anyway.

Fury had a bad habit of manipulating conversations to go his way.

"And what effect is that?" I demanded warily, curious in spite of myself.

"He seems to have accepted his place in the world, in S.H.I.E.L.D," Fury's shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, as if he was actually pleased to recount the changes he had observed in the First Avenger. "At the very least, he's reading everything he can get his hands on and taking an active interest in things he doesn't understand. I guess you could say he's showing a willingness to _learn_," Fury paused and his mouth twitched as if he was fighting a smile. "He's not picking fights with Stark, which is also an improvement."

"Is Stark behaving?" I knew enough of Iron Man's reputation to hazard that getting along with a man who was his polar opposite would _not_ be his strong suit.

"Not really," Fury shrugged, his demeanor almost bemused. "But, that's to be expected. Stark doesn't play well with others."

"It's because he wants to be the leader," I couldn't stop myself from voicing my private psychoanalyzation of the dynamic that news cameras had captured during the Battle of New York and afterwards. "But that's never going to happen."

"No?" Fury titled his head, interested.

"No," I gathered my book to my chest and crossed my hands protectively over its flaking cover.

"And why's that?"

I was sure Fury knew the answer, but for some reason, he wanted me to say it.

"Because Steve is the leader. He's _supposed_ to be the leader. It's that singular quality that makes him Captain America. You wouldn't have him in the Avengers for any other reason - he's what brings everyone together."

"Astute, as always," Fury folded his arms across his chest, in mimic of my own, and rocked back on his heels. "We could really use that keen insight -"

"Forget it," I cut him off before he could build steam behind his argument.

"Not so fast, Elinor," Fury _always_ insisted on using my full name and it made me grind my teeth in frustration; I _hated_ being called "Elinor". "What you've done to Rogers is remarkable. I would be interested in offering you a position with the Avengers as," his dark eye fell thoughtfully toward the collar around my throat. "A chaplain of sorts."

"A...chaplain?" I repeated stupidly; whatever I had expected him to say, this was _not_ it.

"There's a lot of..._baggage_…among the Avengers," Fury picked his words carefully, his tone wry. "Baggage that keeps them from working together to the best of their potential. I was hoping maybe you could help."

"Manipulate them?" my eyes narrowed.

"_Heal_ them," for once, Fury seemed absolutely genuine in his desire for an altruistic goal.

I wanted so much to believe in Fury's goodness - or at least, in his good intentions. And the offer was actually appealing - but I knew that it came with a price. I didn't know what that price was, but I had no desire in paying it.

"Don't you have psychologists? Psychiatrists? Therapists? You're the director of S.H.I.E.L.D - _surely_ you can hire anyone you want," I refused to buy into his plea.

"I want _you_," Fury insisted and I could tell he was getting frustrated, by the way he clipped his words.

"Because of my powers?" I thought I finally saw his end game and my voice was bitter.

Fury's silence confirmed my suspicions. I could feel my anger begin to rise.

"You have _always_ misunderstood my abilities, Fury," I practically hissed at him and I could feel my carefully constructed control begin to strain. "I can heal _physical_ wounds - knit up bones, stop blood, cure diseases. But I can't and never will be able to heal a person's _mind_. No," I thought I finally saw his ruse and I straightened my back in righteous indignation. "This is all a lure, to get me on the team, to get me working for S.H.I.E.L.D. Then you'd devise some scenario, get me caught up in some sort of trap, so I _am_ forced to use my powers. So _you_ can use my powers."

"I have told you a thousand times before, S.H.I.E.L.D is _nothing_ like the Brotherhood. I have no desire to use your abilities to _hurt_ -"

"You are a thousand times _worse_ than the Brotherhood!" I lashed out, my temper finally getting the better of me. "At least the Brotherhood were honest, at least their intentions were clear from the beginning. You?" I practically spit the word in Fury's direction. "You're all cloaks and daggers, Fury, and I don't think you fight for any side but your own."

"Oh, really?" Fury let his hands fall to his side and I watched his body go strangely limp; I knew the sign of a true fighter preparing for a strike and I gripped my book that much tighter to my chest. "And the men you work for, _Priest_," it was his turn to hiss at me. "They're not in it for their own agenda either, is that it? I would like to remind you that it was S.H.I.E.L.D's Avenger's agenda that saved the _world_, while your masters stood to the side and did _nothing_."

I felt my blood freeze. How could Fury _possibly_ know who I was, who I had become?

"Thought I wouldn't figure it out?" he interpreted my shocked silence correctly and the arrogance returned to his dark face. "I've been looking for you for a _long_ time, Elinor. And it's S.H.I.E.L.D's job to keep its allies close and its enemies closer."

"I...we're not your enemy," I saw no reason to deny what he was saying - we both knew that somehow, impossibly, Fury knew the truth.

"But you're not our_ ally_, either," the director was quick to point out; his eye narrowed again. "And in case you're curious, I traced you back _from_ your Priest persona. When you know what to look for, you're really quite obvious, Elinor. 'Blood magic' - as your people call it - is a rare mutation. I just looked for a do-gooder who healed cuts and bleeding wounds without any reasonable explanation, and worked my way back from there. Although, I have to say," he waved a hand almost dismissively toward my somber clothes. "The _actual_ priest gig is rather convincing."

"It's _not_ an act," I corrected his assumptions through clenched teeth.

"I believe you," Fury said after a slight pause. "Like I said, I'm impressed by the impression you've left on Rogers. You could be a great asset."

"All I've ever wanted, was to be left alone," I hoped my words didn't sound as pathetic to him as they did to my own ears. "I want to live my life my own way. Who I ally myself with is_ my _own choice; what I do with my powers is _my_ own choice; who I help is _my_ own choice. Now, leave."

"I'll leave you my card," Fury pulled a slim, black card out of some secret pocket and stepped forward just far enough to lay it on the edge of my desk. "Just in case you change your mind."

"Get lost," I resisted the urge touse far more colorful language - I had always solemnly sworn to myself _not_ to swear like a sailor on holy ground.

"Be careful out there, Elinor," Fury turned to go, but hesitated just as he reached the door.

He glanced over his shoulder at me, his dark eye hooded and mysterious.

"Your people want me to keep my nose out of it, but there's something strange bumping around in the night lately," without another word of helpful explanation, Fury slipped into the shadows with a faint rustle of cloth and a lingering admonition - "Watch your back."

* * *

**Author's Note:** _Sooooooo many thank you's to **Sandy-wmd** and **Jade-Max**, for the reviews. You two really made my day! Please keep the comments coming - they make the story (and my writing) that much better! :)_


	4. Blood At Twilight

"_In the morning light let my roots take flight;_

_Watch me fall above like a vicious dove._

_They don't see me come, who can blame them?_

_They never seem to catch my eye, but I never wondered why."_

"**Tiptoe"**

**Imagine Dragons**

* * *

**Captain America's POV**

Priest could _fight_.

We were back to back in yet _another_ dark and dubious alleyway. This time, the situation was a lot more dire than it had been before. Now, instead of one black oozing _Thing_, we were confronted by no less than _five_.

One was horrific enough. Five was enough to make me shudder.

They were hideous - from anatomy alone, one could deduce that these creatures had once been human. They had the right proportions, the right number of arms and legs, and they even had human forces - sort of. Something had happened to them, though. Something horrific and altogether unholy.

They were hunched over, their backs deformed by a grotesque hunch that tore through their already tattered clothing. Their skin apparently went through some sort of gradual metamorphosis - one, the strongest one incidentally, had cracked, pure black skin. The others had skin in various shades of pallid grey - they _all_ oozed a thick, putrid black liquid. The first time I caught a whiff of them, I gagged - the smell was a mixture of rotting flesh, burned blood, and scorched sewage. They smelled like a battlefield, honestly, and it was a smell I both knew and hated.

If they affected Priest's olfactory senses, he didn't show it. Not that I could see much beneath the wide brim of his white fedora. The skin that was exposed was the lower half of his face, from nose to chin; his eyes were hidden in shadow, so I couldn't gauge anything from his demeanor.

The _Things_ were vicious. Besides being ugly and smelling like death, they had twisted claw-like hands that were tipped in razor-sharp bone that I assumed had once been fingernails. The black-skinned one was missing half its jaw and it's tongue - a blackened, drooling monstrosity - hung out. It was twice the size of a normal tongue and flopped around grotesquely as the creature moved. All of them had opaque red eyes - no pupils, no irises. Just a blank slate of hellish red where their eyes had once been.

I was going to have nightmares about these things for a while; they were infinitely more hideous than the Chitauri. In fact, next to..._whatever_ these were...the Chitauri were almost cuddly.

I had been prowling around the streets, like I usually did nowadays, with the intent of actually looking for Priest. He intrigued me and I hadn't run across him for several weeks. In fact, it had almost been two months since we last crossed paths - almost eight months since the Battle of New York. I was in Brooklyn at least three times a week, spending time with Mother Eli at St. Francis'. I usually stuck around after those visits and waited for night to fall; I would then find some abandoned building to change in and start policing the streets as Captain America.

The news had caught up with me; it was now common knowledge that I had taken a special interest in Brooklyn. No one really questioned it, though - after all, it was _also_ common knowledge that I was originally from Brooklyn to begin with. Oddly enough, no one found out that I was spending time at St. Francis during the day. I suspected Mother Eli and her congregation kept their mouths shut and I was grateful to them for their silence. While Tony and Thor never seemed to mind the cameras, I was more like Bruce, Clint, and Natasha - I avoided journalists like the plague. I don't think I could have born the thought of having my one sanctuary in the world overrun by overbearing paparazzi.

It was hard to keep my nocturnal habits a secret, though. For one, the suit was a little hard to miss. For another, it was hard to overlook statistics - Priest did a pretty impressive job of keeping violence down on his beat, but with my help the crimes of Brooklyn practically vanished. It was now lauded as the safest district of New York City. If _I_ had been a journalist, I would have been all over me just from that angle alone, so I couldn't really blame the news for making a big deal about my involvement. It also seemed to take some of the interest away from Priest (as I had learned from Mother Eli), which I didn't think he minded in the least - if he _was_ a priest in his daytime life, then I suspected he was grateful for the diversion of public interest. All the better to keep his identity hidden. And, in turn, that took some of the heat off of the priests and ministers in the area, which I _knew_ Mother Eli appreciated, if no one else. She - along with most of the clergy in Brooklyn - hadn't cared for the media's scrutiny.

The only menace left skulking Brooklyn alleys was these abnormal caricatures of human life. The media hadn't yet picked up on their existence and I wasn't sure whether or not to be relieved about that. I was definitely starting to think that maybe I should say something to Fury - this was now the fourth time I had encountered them, the second time I had encountered them with Priest present, and the first time I had encountered more than one of them in the same location.

As I backhanded the ringleader with the edge of my shield, I decided to have a quick word with Priest at the end of our fight. I needed to know if he had noticed a marked increase in the presence of these _things_.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye; the man was more than impressive and he had possession of some sort of super-human power that I had never seen before. We currently stood back to back, his smaller frame practically tucked against the hollows of my significantly larger frame. I briefly wondered if maybe Mother Eli had a point - stocky as he was, he seemed almost too slight to be a man.

Such close contact with him, though, made my blood hum. I had no other word for it - I felt warmer than normal (which said something, since I was my own personal reactor) and my heart raced twice as fast as it normally did. It felt as if every last blood vessel had been enlarged; my heart felt as if it was pumping double. The closest feeling I could compare it to was the sensation that overcame me when a large amount of adrenaline hit my system. I always felt that way at the _start_ of a fight - any fighter would - but this was a _sustained_ sensation that reached its peak when I felt Priest's back against mine.

I felt as if I could fight faster, harder, longer - which was pretty damn impressive, since I could outlast all of the Avengers in hand-to-hand, with the exception of the Hulk. When I body-checked one of the things into another, and sent _both_ of them careening into the nearest wall, I suspected that I _could_ fight better with Priest at my side. The creatures slammed into the brick siding with a sickening crunch and I knew that they weren't getting up. We had three more to go.

Furious at the demise of their fellows, the remaining Things emitted a singular keen that sent chills down my spine as they swarmed us. A transparent, reddish dome suddenly surrounded us on all sides. I paused, just briefly, to stare and wonder where that had come from; I felt Priest's warmth separate from my own and I glanced over my shoulder to see him standing just a step away from me, his right hand outstretched.

He clutched a faded leather book to his chest with his free hand, and both his hand and the book glowed red. I looked back at the dome shimmering in front of us and marveled momentarily at the way it seemed to move in front of me, like fluid. The appearance of the dome startled the _things_ as well and their leader showed something like intelligence. It stopped dead in its tracks, just inches away from the liquid-like barrier and hissed, it's tongue lolling wetly across its shattered chin.

One of its followers wasn't so bright. It careened head-on into the barrier, only to freeze the instant that it came in contact with it. The creature's red eyes suddenly bulged and its mouth opened in a scream that was inhuman, to say the least. It shuddered, shaking the dome in its death throes; its eyes practically melted in front of me, an ooze of sickly red blood, and more black slime slid out of the corner of its mouth and out of its cadaverous nose.

It then collapsed and the barrier flared a brighter shade of red, just for a second, as if a surge of energy had suddenly strengthened it. I felt a little sick to my stomach as I turned toward Priest with wide eyes - call me crazy, but I almost suspected that the creature's death had _fortified_ the blood-red dome.

Priest met my gaze for half a second; I couldn't see his eyes, but I knew he was looking at me. The set of his jaw was tight, as if he were clenching his teeth. At first, I wasn't sure if that was because of determination or effort, but then his outstretched hand trembled and I realized that it was costing him something fierce to defend us.

"Drop it," I growled; I was one of the strongest men in the world and I wasn't about to let my partner fall out from exhaustion when I could pick up my share of the fight.

Priest hesitated just a moment, then nodded. The red barrier shimmered, then faded as suddenly as it had appeared. The remaining two Things howled in something like triumph and the last grey-skinned one launched itself at me.

I swung hard at it with my shield; to my surprise, it was faster than it looked, as it dodged the blow and scuttled crab-like toward the side. I moved to bring my shield down on top of its misshapen head, but it moved again; I narrowed my eyes and glanced toward the black one, which was just hovering malevolently.

The two were up to something. Clearly, their intelligence didn't entirely leave them as they rotted away.

The black one started to move, quick as Thor's lightning, and Priest shouted something behind me. It froze in mid-leap, a red haze glowing around it as its eyes bulged angrily. I turned my attention toward the smaller Thing, which was moving toward me with evil intent. I decapitated it with one fell blow and I turned quickly on my heel to dispatch the leader.

It was clearly fighting whatever Priest had done to it. My companion stood next to me, legs spread and feet firmly rooted to the concrete beneath us. Both of his hands were on his book again and he had it stretched in front of him in a defensive gesture. He was glowing that eerie red again, but the glow around the Thing was flickering like a faulty light bulb.

I moved as quickly as I could, knowing that Priest was holding the Thing up so I could get a clean death-blow. In the instant that I moved, however, it broke whatever was holding it in place and the red glow vanished. Priest grunted, as if punched, and the Thing flicked its vile tongue at me in something like insolence. In the instant that I stepped into its space, it slithered to the side, into the shadows, and _vanished_.

"What…?" I sputtered, stopped dead in my tracks.

My chest heaved with exertion and power, my eyes scoured the darkness in front of us. I could hear the Thing scuttling away, but it matched the shadows so well that I couldn't track its departure. I could hear it, though, so in a last ditch-effort, I threw my shield after it. All I hit was brick, as debris clattered down to the ground and a hideous, gurgling chuckle mocked us from the distance.

I knew, instinctively, that it was gone and I turned, suddenly exhausted, toward Priest.

His chest was heaving as well and I couldn't help watch him in awe.

"What _are_ you?" the words tumbled out of me in a breathless rush.

I hadn't meant to be so blunt, but he had done things that defied any sort of technology or science I knew. I was particularly disturbed by the Thing that had died on the barrier; I glanced down at its still-oozing body and couldn't help shaking my head in disbelief.

"A friend," Priest rasped into the darkness as he knelt down next to one of the broken bodies.

"Is that all I get to know?" I felt a little surly - we had now fought twice together.

Was trusting me that difficult? I didn't want to know his identity, I just wanted to know how he did what he did. It was...I was hesitant to admit it to myself...almost like _magic_.

"For now," Priest pulled what looked like a vial out of the inside of his white coat and held its open mouth against one of the Thing's leaking sores.

I realized, as I watched, that he was taking a sample. I raised my eyebrows in interest behind my mask.

"We should go after the one that got away," I suggested, almost as an afterthought.

"Not until we know more," Priest stood up and casually stuck a stopper into the vial before sliding it back underneath his jacket. "I think that one could be deadly, if approached without a better understanding of what we're up against."

"It _was_ uncanny smart," I admitted, remembering the hair-raising chuckle and glancing nervously behind me into the darkness.

"I think it'll lay low for tonight," Priest reached up and tipped his hat to me; I realized that this was goodbye. "Shall we hunt together tomorrow, Captain America?"

I was a little surprised by the unexpected offer of alliance, but I nodded wholeheartedly.

"Yes," I put one fist into an open palm and cracked my knuckles thoughtfully as I considered the shadows around us. "Meet you at the steps of St. Francis' Episcopal Church?"

It was the most familiar landmark I had in this new and modern Brooklyn. Priest hesitated, oddly enough enough, for just a second or so, but then agreed.

"At midnight, then," he made the sign of the cross. "And God be with you."

* * *

"Well, you're here late, Steve," Mother Eli poked her head around the corner of the church kitchen and raised a reddish-blond eyebrow at me.

"Oh, yeah," I was suddenly sheepish and I shuffled my feet. "Uh...hope you don't mind?" I glanced down at the cup of coffee in my hand and mumbled at it. "Didn't make any sense to head back to Manhattan. Got some…" I paused, realizing what I was about to say.

"Meeting someone?" her smile dazzled me and I blinked a bit stupidly.

"Uh...yeah. How…?"

Her intuition was remarkable.

"The papers haven't exactly made a mystery of your work with Priest," Mother Eli's smile was practically roguish. "If you're hanging around until after dark - and it's twilight, now," she glanced toward the kitchen window with a knowing eye. "Then I'm going to assume you're up to something with our clerical vigilante, _Captain_ _America_," she emphasized my superhero name with another cheeky grin.

"Yeah," I laughed a little nervously and ran a hand through my hair. "I hope you don't mind…don't really have anywhere else to hang out around here."

"No problem at all," she waved a hand dismissively at me, as if hanging around in her church was no big deal. "In fact, if you need to use the premises as a base of operation, feel free," she eyed my street clothes and surprised me with a wink. "And if you need to use the bathrooms to change, have it."

I was immediately humbled. Mother Eli asked for nothing in return, but kept graciously providing me with a space to call my own, away from Stark Tower, away from the Avengers, away from S.H.I.E.L.D. In turn, my time at St. Francis was slowly anchoring me into the modern world and making my adjustment to it in Manhattan a lot easier than it would have been otherwise. I still had my struggles, my burdens, my sorrows - but they always seemed a little less pressing in the building where I had once worshiped as a boy.

"Thank you, Mother Eli," I thanked her softly; her smile just grew more brilliant.

"Just don't tell me what you're up to," she withdrew, but I could still hear her voice, amused, around the corner of the kitchen door. "I don't need to know!"

I couldn't help grinning a little foolishly at her words. She was a quirky little dame…

I carried on with my cup of coffee, without really realizing that somewhere along the way, I had started to think of Mother Eli as a "dame".

* * *

Her scream rent the quiet twilight air in two and my name echoed eerily against the church walls. I was halfway through changing - I had decided to grab my old rucksack, which I usually kept stuffed in the back of a kitchen cabinet when I came to visit, and change a few hours early. I still had a good five hours to go, but it was early November and the nights were starting earlier. I figured I could go back to the scene of our fight last night and do a little investigation, before heading back to St. Francis and meeting Priest for our joint venture.

I was barefoot and shirtless, but thankfully still wearing my battered pair of jeans. I didn't even stop to think. I grabbed my shield and barreled through the men's bathroom door. Mother Eli screamed again, this time her words an inarticulate jumble of fear, and I made a beeline toward the sound of her voice.

She was outside, on the steps. A bag had fallen to the ground, books and a shattered tablet scattered around like casualties. I realized with a pang that she'd been leaving to head home, but there wasn't any time to dwell on the thought. She was on the ground, struggling with something huge and dark that seethed evilly above her.

I saw it raise a twisted, clawed hand and slash down toward her face. Her scream curdled the air. I threw the shield with every ounce of strength I possessed.

The shield hit it just as it raised its claws for a second blow; Mother Eli had fallen eerily still. The thing grunted and snarled in pain; I closed the gap between us with two long strides and I realized, with a jolt, that it was the black-skinned ringleader from last night.

"You bastard," I hissed, as I grabbed my shield as it spun back toward me.

I couldn't tell where the shield had hit it, but the Thing wasn't assaulting Mother Eli any more. Disturbingly enough, however, it wasn't assaulting _me_, either. It bared it's black and bloody teeth at me, then took off over the church gate and into the alley between St. Francis and the shops next door.

I shouted a challenge and pursued it. I threw my shield again - and hit it, I assumed, in the back. It grunted and I saw its hulking form stumble for just a moment. But, then the shadows overcame it and when I ran to where it had been, it was there no more. I looked frantically all around the tiny alleyway and even craned my neck to look up at the tops of the buildings, but it was nowhere to be found.

"Damn!" I shouted my frustration at the darkness.

Somewhere, in the distance, I heard sirens. I didn't know who had been called and I didn't know if they had been called for Mother Eli, but something instinctively told me that she was beyond the help of civilian law enforcement or medicine.

I wanted to go after the Thing and hunt it down. I wanted to wait for Priest, so we could hunt after it together. But, I had seen it tear into Mother Eli and I had seen her form go limp against the ground. My blood ran cold as I left the pursuit behind me and hurried back to her side.

She lay at an awkward angle on her back, illuminated by the wan light from the street lamps on the other side of the church fence. I could see the blood pooling beneath her head, black against the off-white pavement. I fell hard to my knees beside her and paid no mind whatsoever to the pain that shot up my thighs in protest.

"Mother Eli?" I reached out to her.

I knew better than to move her, but I let my fingers dance over the side of her face and her neck. While blood was pooling, sticky and wet, beneath her braid, it wasn't originating from her skull. I released a breath I didn't know I was holding and leaned closer to examine her torso.

Her shoulder was ripped to shreds, white bone glinting in the light near her elbow and her clavicle. I swallowed hard and pressed a finger to my ear, where I kept a comm link to Stark Tower at all times - even Tony had sensible ideas from time to time.

"J.A.R.V.I.S?" I called into the bleeding darkness, my voice tight with fear.

"Captain," the A.I.'s cultured British voice answered me and relief flooded through me; thank God for Stark and his stupid gadgets. "How may I be of assistance?"

"Tell Tony to suit up and to bring Dr. Banner along with an emergency medical kit. I need an airlift. There's a civilian down and she's badly injured."

"Of course," J.A.R.V.I.S. responded and then, after a delicate pause, "Should I contact the nearest hospital instead?"

"No," I answered grimly, with a furtive glance toward shadows that rippled eerily beyond the circle of light around us. "This is an emergency for S.H.I.E.L.D."


End file.
